Today, we rose early to have a shared breakfast before leaving for the stadium for our first and only training with the home team, Türkiye. The stadium is kind of in the middle of nowhere amongst mountains – which we thought was super random but cool. Tom brings his speaker wherever we go to keep the energy high. There was lots of singing on the bus. As we walked in we were greeted by team Türkiye and started our game warm up. While we were a little shaky to begin, we all found our rhythm quickly as we played a bit of 4 on 4 with each other. We brought this confidence into our 20 minute practice match against the Turkish side. We noticed quickly that they were athletic and loved a long shot, but that their defence style was very much player focussed. Some great defence and an unforgivable post left both teams scoreless for the first half. In the second half though, we picked up the energy with Ned nailing his first free pass and Liberty and Taylah dominating their players to score both a long shot and run in. We finished the game 4-3 down but we are hopeful that had the game been of a proper length we would have brought it home.

As we were packing up, we were stunned to see the Netherlands team walk in towering over all of us. Dom made a comment about them being giants not realising one of them was sitting on the bench right next to him. He appreciated the comment and had a little giggle. We’re looking forward to watching them compete through the tournament. As we waited for the bus, we played a bit of hacky-sack to improve team chemistry – this has become our time passing thing. Some of us are definitely in the right sport.

When we got back to the hotel we all hopped in the pool and had a recovery session together led by Zac – which is always a fun time. Soon after we made our way to a formal conference room for our first team meeting. This is where the tournament started to become real. We talked about our game against Türkiye and strategy, using real life pawns. Ned made a wonderful post. We then went through the starting lineup for our game against Belgium. Following the meeting, we all had lunch together and some free time before going on a team walk around town and checking out one of the other hotels. We’re definitely in the party hotel. In town, we ran into a man selling ice cream and a show. Tim reluctantly immersed himself in this humiliating experience for our enjoyment. He said the embarrassment was worth the ice cream. A few of us then did some shopping before heading back to the hotel for some more down time and dinner. It was gala night at the hotel so the pool was set up with tables and chairs and a stage with lights and live music. After dinner, some of us finished the night dancing together with one of the staff. We then all got an early night for our big first game against Belgium tomorrow.

If you want to follow along on our trip, we post on our instagram regularly: @u21_aussie_korfball_team